Common questions

Provides experienced operations leadership on a part-time schedule. At IOG, Todd works on site with ownership and the leadership team on daily management systems, throughput, maintenance reliability and the operating rhythm that keeps those gains in place.

It is the work a full-time COO would do, scheduled around what the business needs, without the cost of a full-time executive hire.

The difference is who carries the work after the findings. A consultant usually hands over recommendations. A fractional COO stays inside the operating rhythm and works the plan with your people until it holds.

The one fixed-scope piece IOG offers, the Operational Diagnostic, is written so your team can execute its action plan with or without further engagement.

Small and midsize manufacturers, roughly $10M to $75M in revenue, PE-backed or independently owned. IOG has particular depth in discrete, automated and technically complex operations, such as machined parts, industrial equipment, assemblies and precision fabrication, but the work is not limited to them.

For family and independently owned companies, the work centers on finding the operating gap that costs the most and closing it. PE-backed operators get the same work, built around the reporting and performance pressure of a portfolio company.

Yes. Process improvement and operational troubleshooting apply anywhere work moves through a defined process, including distribution, logistics, field service and other service operations.

Manufacturing is the core of IOG and where the depth is. Outside it, an engagement starts the same way: a fixed-scope diagnostic on one problem worth solving. The Services page has the details.

Often, yes. A fractional COO works alongside the plant manager, not in place of them, connecting what ownership intends with what actually happens on the floor.

Much of the work is building the daily systems that make the plant manager’s job easier to do well. That space between the plan and the floor is the interstitial space the company is named for.

With a conversation about one operational problem. From there, the usual first step is the Operational Diagnostic: a fixed-scope, fixed-timeline engagement that identifies and quantifies the gap costing you the most.

It uses Six Sigma and Kepner-Tregoe root-cause methods rather than generic benchmarking, and ends with a prioritized action plan. If the value of fractional leadership has not been proven inside your company yet, this is the place to start.

Enough to be part of the operating rhythm, not a quarterly visitor. A retainer is built around a set number of days on site each month, agreed before the work starts.

Inside the core corridor, travel is absorbed into the fee. Outside it, engagements run remote-first with scheduled on-site blocks, and travel is handled separately.

Your team keeps running what was built. The goal is a plant that holds its gains without IOG in the building.

Configured software tools are planned as part of that leave-behind. They are in development and testing now, and the Services page lists each one’s status.

IOG is based in Canajoharie, New York. The core region runs along the I-90 corridor: the Mohawk Valley, Capital Region and Central New York, from Syracuse and Utica through Albany and Saratoga Springs, south to Cooperstown and Oneonta. Work there runs on site, with full days on the floor.

Engagements across the Northeast and Great Lakes, and selectively elsewhere in the continental U.S., are considered case by case. The Region page shows the full coverage.

Todd Kayhart, the founder, directly. There are no account managers or junior staff running the engagement.

Todd has more than 22 years in manufacturing operations, from the plant floor to executive leadership, and holds a Six Sigma Black Belt and Kepner-Tregoe certification.

Each engagement is scoped and priced to the problem before any work starts. The Operational Diagnostic is fixed scope with a fee agreed up front. Fractional COO leadership runs as a monthly retainer with a three-month initial engagement, or as a defined-scope project.

Fees are not published on the site. Ask, and you will get a straight answer.

Yes. Interstitial Operations Group carries professional liability (errors and omissions) insurance. A certificate of insurance is available on request.

One program is in pilot and the rest are in planning. Beat the Boss, a timed, hands-on manufacturing challenge for students, was piloted at Career Con on the SUNY Fulton-Montgomery campus in October 2026.

Corporate sessions and open seminars for supervisors and frontline leads are in planning. Schools, career events and manufacturers can contact Todd to discuss either.